Making Memories

At a recent homeschool support group meeting, our guest speaker encouraged us to look at homeschooling as "making memories" rather than just "teaching". Too often we get focused on getting through our curriculum or keeping a particular schedule. We forget how precious and fleeting this time is with our children. She encouraged us to remember that each day is an opportunity to make wonderful memories with our children.

I really liked the idea of looking at each day and each week of study as an opportunity to make memories with my girls. It's easy on memorable days such as field trips or special events. But ultimately, most days are just run-of-the-mill homeschooling days. Yet the sum of those days will make a lifetime of schooling memories.

So I began to think...

One thing we did was create some games for our Explode the Code workbook. When she has to check yes or no for an activity or check the top or bottom sentence, she assigns me one category and her another. So I might be the yes boxes and she might be the no boxes. As she completes the assignment, we keep guessing who will win.

I thought this was ridiculous until she returned from her bible class one day and told me that she was sad when she did her Explode the Code homework. I asked her what made her sad and she told me that I wasn't there to pick a column and play our game.

Precious.

Even Explode the Code can make a fun family memory. Who would have thought?

Then one day last week I randomly suggested that K (age 6) be the teacher for our morning board and I would fill in her folder as the student.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

Let's just say that it was a hit! She embraced the role of teacher and had a great time. Of course, she didn't want me to write in her folder, so she did both.

The next day, T (age 4) was our teacher and she led us through our morning board. She was quite happy to llet me be the student in her place and fill in her folder.

They both loved this.

I think I will continue to introduce our morning board on Monday, but let each of them have a turn as the teacher during the week. This was definitely memorable.

While I realize that not every lesson and activity are going to be a hit, it has been fun to make little changes in our day so that we can all enjoy one another even more.

Off I go to plan another day filled with memories!